A married couple is devastated after the shocking discovery that they're twins- a discovery they made while trying to get pregnant.

The couple met in college and had gone to a Mississippi clinic in the United States to get help to conceive. Instead, they found out that they were twins.

“During the process we take a DNA sample from both the male and female to get a profile of their genetic backgrounds,” the doctor, whose name has been withheld to protect the patients’ identities, said according to the Mississippi Herald.

“It’s just a routine thing and we wouldn’t normally check to see if there was a relationship between the two samples, but in this case the lab assistant involved was shocked by the similarity of each profile.”

The doctor said his initial reaction was that they might be first cousins “happens sometimes”, but then he noticed the very close similarities. He also saw that they shared the same birthdays, being born in 1984.

“It was a difficult subject to raise,” he said. “They burst out laughing when I asked them if they were twins.

“The husband said a lot of people remarked on the fact they shared the same birthday and looked similar, but they said it was just a funny coincidence and they were definitely not related.”

The doctor says he continued to insist that the pair were twins and had DNA evidence to back it up, after which the wife “pleaded” with him to admit he was joking.

“I wish that I was, but they had to know the truth,” he said.

The couple had met in college and hit it off due to their similar backgrounds – they had both been adopted after their parents had died.

The pair’s biological parents had died in a car crash and, due to a filing error, neither of their adopted families were told they had a twin.